Maoists win the election in Nepal

The Maoist party - former guerrillas CPN(M) - have won a clear majority in last week's elections. But what changes will this mean for Nepal's workers and peasants?

The result so far is for the 240-seats first-past-the-post vote for the Constituent Assembly. Results for the decisive 335-seat proportional representation part of the Assembly will take longer, but the Maoists are expected to do well in this too.

The result is a big surprise that goes against most media predictions. It seems that the Maoists' organisational structure, which extends to the remoter areas, has survived largely intact since the end of their guerilla war. This network served well as an election campaigning machine, particularly in the less accessible rural areas where other parties have no presence. There were reports by other parties of Maoist intimidation of voters and rival candidates. Official election observers, including some representing the UN, were reported to be overstretched in their work, and the Election Commission overseeing the fairness of procedures ordered 106 polling centers to hold re-polling due to irregularities. Nevertheless, most observers seem willing to accept the overall result. (Many who might have otherwise challenged the result may have been put off by the Maoists' pre-election declaration that they would not accept defeat in the election; they claimed to be so sure of victory that a defeat would be evidence of their being cheated!) Even with some irregularities, the vote does appear to reflect a big shift in political allegiances among the population. Perhaps, in the world of generalised corruption that is Nepali politics, the voters decided - better the devil you don't know than the one you do.

What is the programme of the Maoists? They have been eager in recent days to reassure local capitalists, potential foreign investors and regional neighbours. Nepal being a buffer state between China and India, the world's two fastest growing economies, they hope to reap some benefits from the proximity and have been cultivating diplomatic relations for some time. They are quite explicit that they will pursue a programme of economic expansion; one can assume this will include some modest land reform and redistribution, attempted job creation and will follow the model of other Asian economies in attracting foreign investment with Economic Processing Zones where major tax concessions are available to foreign capital enticed by a plentiful supply of dirt-cheap labour.

Reading statements made in recent days by Maoist party leaders one can see new government policies in the making;

" The Maoists central leadership has said that the party which has swung the country’s politics during the freshly concluded CA poll will not deviate from the “globalization and liberalization” process that was on in the world today.

Outlining the would be economic policy of the Maoists party when in power, Comrade Prachanda said that “we will not confiscate the properties of the owners contrary to what has been disseminated in order to malign the Maoist party”.

According to him, after the political revolution that has just finished, the Maoists will henceforth concentrate its entire efforts aimed at bringing about what he called “economic revolution in the country”.

“Rest assured, we are in favor of the capitalist economy”, Prachanda said.

Talking on the Maoists militias, Prachanda said that they could be used as “industrial security force” time permitting. "

This may mean that the troublesome bored youth of the Young Communist League (see earlier report here; http://libcom.org/news/democratic-stresses-nepal-i...) - demobilised Maoist guerillas at a loose end with no clear role in the post-war society - will now be deployed to maintain a militarised labour discipline to make foreign investment even more attractive.

" Prachanda also had all praise for the Indian establishment for all that the Indian government did in creating an atmosphere which could bring the Maoists back to Nepal.

“I hope India will continue its support to Nepal”, Prachanda added.

Prachanda also made it clear that his government would continue its relations with China, the European Union, World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the IMF. Telegraphnepal.com 17 Apr 08 "

And so all the regular 'anti-imperialist' sloganising so often heard coming from the Maoist camp is quickly airbrushed from history and disappears into the Himalayan mist.

" ... Dr. Bhattarai said that the “mantle of economic revolution would be handed over to the businessmen/industrialists and that we in the government would only facilitate their march towards economic revolution”.

We would like to assure everyone that once the Maoists come (into government) the investment climate will be even more favourable. There shouldn’t be any unnecessary misunderstanding about that. The rumours in the press about our intention are wrong, there are reports of capital flight, but this shouldn’t happen. And the other aspect is that once there is political stability, the investment climate will be even better. Our other agenda is economic development and for this we want to mobilise domestic resources and capital, and also welcome private foreign direct investment. The only thing we ask is to be allowed to define our national priorities. "

The "domestic resources and capital" available to the Maoists to "mobilise" are the extremely cheap labour force and the natural resources, primarily potential hydro power projects with all their possible damaging ecological impact.

" We want to fully assure international investors already in Nepal that we welcome them here, and we will work to make the investment climate even better than it is now. Just watch, the labour-management climate will improve in our time in office. What happened in the past two years with the unions happened during a transition phase.... Nepali Times 16 Apr 2008 "

This translates as - "yes, we have in the past called strikes (to further the interests of the Party rather than the workers) by Maoist-dominated unions to prevent printing and distribution of newspapers who gave us unfavourable coverage; and we have attacked and kidnapped officials of rival unions such as GEFONT and DECONT (see allegations here; http://survey07.ituc-csi.org/getcountry.php?IDCoun... )- but now investing capitalists can expect as firm a hand applied to maintain discipline in the workplace and minimise disruption to profit creation. This is in the grand tradition of Bolshevik labour relations started by Lenin".

The Maoist ambition appears to be a sustained and speedy growth along the lines of China - but they will be starting from a far less favourable socio-economic base, in far less favourable conditions as a global recession begins to bite. The best that the Maoist state can probably hope for - at least in the short-term - is to be used as another out-sourcing area where cheap unskilled labour is exploited by its larger industrial neighbours. But that is quite enough to enrich the new ruling elite. And if, after a few years of discovering that the new whip hurts as much as the old whip, the Nepalese poor then become disillusioned with their Maoist masters and look like voting them out of power; we may then find the Maoists announcing that their industrial development has finally 'abolished feudalism' and completed the 'bourgeois-democratic revolution'. Therefore parliamentary democracy will have become obsolete and it will be time for the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' in the form of an indefinite one-party Maoist state.

For libcom news 17 Apr 2008; libcom.org